So let's see. Jimmy Haslam has apparently flown on his private jet ("Truck Stop One"?) back to The Flying J Ranch, in Tennessee.

Mike Lombardi, the stealth general manager, is working on getting his degree from The Potted Plant Impersonation School.

Ray Farmer, who was recently hired as assistant general manager, which meant he was the assistant to a position that didn't exist until that oversight was hastily corrected by changing Lombardi's title from vice president of player personnel to general manager, is busy waiting to assist Lombardi once he returns from the commencement ceremonies.

Rob Chudzinski is probably busy overseeing the remodeling of the head coach's office from the beige-colored walls, beige desk, beige furniture, beige lighting fixtures and off-beige window treatments left by the previous tenant.

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So for the time being that leaves the aptly-named Joe Banner as the voice and the face of your 2013 Cleveland Browns.

There's nothing wrong with any of this, of course. Just build the damn team. Who cares how? Who cares who? Just build it. Build it good.

Still, doesn't it seem a little bit odd that the front office official who is usually out front during the player acquisition period of the NFL calendar -- that is to say free agency and the run-up to the draft -- has been about as visible since his hiring by the Browns as the vice president of tattoo acquisition?

In other words, generally speaking, when is the general manager going to begin managing things generally?

Where IS Mike Lombardi?

Banner recently told Plain Dealer that Lombardi is going to be shielded from the media for the time being because he's "a little bit of a lightning rod."

That raises the obvious questions: Yeah? So?

One of the primary jobs of the general manager of any team in any professional sport is to deal with the media. To speak to the fans -- i.e. your customers -- through the media. That's just the way it is. It's the general manager's job to present the vision, the plan, the philosophy of the organization.

It's the general manager's job to explain why certain players were signed, traded for, traded away, to speak to the team's depth chart, needs, goals, policies, and the reasoning behind any and all decisions that impact the team.

The general manager's job isn't to sit in solitary confinement in some hidden inner sanctum office, far away from the ticket-buying public and the question-asking media, protected from any and all criticism as he quietly goes about doing whatever general managers do when they're not doing what general managers are specifically hired to do as a major part of their job -- to frequently appear and speak in public as one of the major voices of the organization.

Hiring a new general manager and then immediately hiding him from the fans and the media is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the person hired, the commitment to him by those doing the hiring, or, for that matter, the credibility of those doing the hiring.

It seems especially disingenuous in a market such as this, where, since the Browns' return to the NFL in 1999, the front office comparable has been more Marx Brothers than Rooney Brothers.

Apparently Browns officials feel that Lombardi can't stand the heat, so they aren't letting him anywhere near the kitchen, much less allowing him into it.

Maybe it won't matter.

Maybe they will build a really good team without ever letting Lombardi out of the basement in Berea. If that happens nobody will, or should, care. Winning is what matters. Losing is what the Browns have been good at.

But until the latter morphs into the former, everything matters -- including appearances.

Especially appearances.

The Lehigh Valley IronPigs are the Class AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. The IronPigs play their home games at Coca-Cola Park, which has now leaped to the forefront in the burgeoning industry of urinal gaming.

That's right, urinal gaming.

In urinal gaming, a video display screen is mounted above each urinal. Each, ah-hem, customer to the urinal controls the play on the screen by aiming to the left or right.

I am not making this up.

We can only assume, then, that Lehigh Valley has a lot of males who have been clamoring for activities that will help increase their intellect while they are going to the bathroom.

I don't even want to know what the game is in the toilet stalls.

CBS Sports' Doug Gottlieb created a controversy Thursday night on the pre-game show for the NCAA tournament. Gottlieb is paired with four African-American men: host Greg Gumbel, and tournament analysts Greg Anthony, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley.

At the opening of Thursday's show Gottlieb jokingly said he was there to "give kind of the white man's perspective."

Gottlieb later issued a statement through CBS saying, "It was not a smart thing to say and I apologize."

Obviously what Gottlieb meant to say was that he was there to "give the awkward, uncomfortable, bad amateur comedian's perspective."

According to reports Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander has agreed to a seven-year, $180 million contract and Giants catcher Buster Posey has agreed to a nine-year, $167 million contract.

This virtually guarantees that the only player either player could be traded for is the other one.

In case you missed it, the Miami Heat finally won a game Friday night. They beat New Orleans 108-89, which snapped the Heat's one-game losing streak.

After Florida Gulf Coast University became the first 15th seed to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, a Florida man filed for a trademark of the term "Dunk City".

In a related story, I have already filed papers to trademark the term "Air Ball" and my lawyer will be attending the next Cavs-Pistons game to monitor it for any copyright infringements.

In one of the classier moments of the NCAA tournament Friday night, a Kansas player deliberately punched Michigan center Mitch McGary in the groin in the first minute of the game.

McGary went on to score 26 points, with 14 rebounds while the player who punched him missed a foul shot on the front-end of a 1-and-1 situation that would have given Kansas a four-point lead with 14 seconds left to play, virtually clinching the victory for Kansas, which ultimately lost in overtime.

Final score: Karma 1, Kansas 0.

Weak of the week

During Thursday's Ohio State-Arizona game in the NCAA Tournament, CBS analyst Len Elmore twice referred to Ohio State's Deshaun Thomas as a senior.

The second time Elmore did it, it was to Thomas' face, during a postgame interview. A stunned, smiling Thomas responded: "Actually, I'm a junior."